Previews

Broken Sword - The Sleeping Dragon

Revolution Software's critically acclaimed PC adventure game series -- Broken Sword -- is about to get a new third installment. Charles Cecil is the man behind Revolution's popular point-and-click series and I recently had the chance to chat with him about Broken Sword - The Sleeping Dragon which is set to hit Xbox, PlayStation 2 and PC later in the year. Charles and his dedicated crew have teamed up with Canadian publisher The Adventure Company and as a whole this latest installment is set to break the mold of the rather stale adventure game genre in more ways than one.

Point-and-click adventuring is dead. At least as far as The Sleeping Dragon is concerned. Revolution decided that the third title in the series needed to break away from certain design conventions in order to innovate and breathe a little life into a somewhat dying gaming genre. As such, The Sleeping Dragon will be the first adventure game in the series (not counting the fairly recent GBA attempt -- The Shadow of the Templars) to include a direct control system implemented via a joypad or keyboard. In this respect, the game will play a little more like Resident Evil or Silent Hill in terms of controls.

Why is this such a big deal? For years now, PC gamers have been used to a point-and-click interface featured in games such as LucasArts' The Secret of Monkey Island series or Ubi Soft's Myst titles. Cecil believes that in order to keep gamers interested and to put a new spin on the genre, this change in needed. It frees up the game designers to add in much more interactivity with the environments and characters, plot development and ultimately gives the players an enhanced sense of participation -- something that might well have been lacking with the old point-and-clickers of yesteryear.

The Sleeping Dragon does still remain an adventure game at its roots however, so fans of the genre need not worry about stints of twitch gaming versus the more usually relaxed pace of their gaming experience.

The Broken Sword series has always been based upon accurate historic timeframes, cultures and events. This remains true of The Sleeping Dragon. The game puts you in control of an American adventurer named George and a French women called Nico. The ever-surprising story line involves an ancient text called the Voynich Manuscript which holds the secret to a terrible and evil power known as The Sleeping Dragon. George and Nico need to work as a team to prevent the manuscript from being deciphered. This will take the duo on whirlwind ride around the globe, solving puzzles and figuring out clues as they go.

Making the jump from 2D to 3D seemed like the logical solution to expanding the gameplay experience of The Sleeping Dragon. Using the new direct control system, George and Nico are able to conduct a much higher level of interactivity with their surroundings. In order make the game work on console systems as well as PC, the control system employs four context-sensitive buttons mapped on the joypad. Depending where the player moves the on-screen character a series of options become available.

This rocklike structure looks like a sleeping dragon.

At the very beginning of the game, George finds himself trapped within a plane wreck somewhere in the jungles of the Congo. The situation is dire as the plane is precariously teetering over the edge of a high cliff. Exploring the fuselage reveals a large crate that can be moved and dragged around. In order to gain access to the cockpit, George needs to shift the weighty item towards the back of the fuselage to offset the load. The context sensitive buttons will changed from "examine" to "grab" to "push" all in the time that it's taken to perform this simple act. In a 3D environment, the traditional point-and-click system would simply not have sufficed.

The Sleeping Dragon has been lovingly crafted to submerge the player into the deep story line -- the most important aspect of a great adventure game. Revolution is making sure that potentially tedious trial-and-error gameplay is nonexistent and that through constant communication through the characters, lengthy cut-scenes are trimmed back to the pace of the game flowing nicely. A restricted camera system adds to the cinematic quality of the story and well-scripted voice-overs and facial animations make the characters of George and Nico all the more realistic.

The Sleeping Dragon is not without a sense of humor either. Witty banter between the main protagonists help to coax the player into the story. Keeping the player on their toes is a key element in an adventure game, so The Sleeping Dragon craftily flip-flops between George's adventure and Nico's at cliffhanger moments. Both characters do meet up after a while, at which point, George is able to "use" Nico like an item in his inventory -- allowing progression past puzzles and action scenes.

Nico interacts with characters.

It's not chock full of blood and gore. And there's more than a little Indiana Jones-style influence. But The Sleeping Dragon is shaping up to offer console and PC gamers alike an absorbing, relaxed-paced gaming experience on an epic scale. The Broken Sword series is already ridiculously popular in the European territories so keep an eye out for the U.S. release of The Sleeping Dragon this October. It might just be the very first real adventure game that console gamers want to play.